1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of key caps. More particularly, the invention pertains to a key cap to comfortably fit around the different edged heads of various common house keys.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Today, most people carry keys with them, e.g., house keys, vehicle keys, mail box keys, office keys. People may also, absentmindedly, carry outdated keys that have no function anymore. They carry duplicate keys of close relatives and friends for emergency situations. Thus, some people carry a plurality of keys at any given time where these keys are bound with a key ring or other retaining means. They do not want to waste time looking or identifying a specific key among the many different keys on a key ring. Therefore, rapid identification of various keys is required.
Of all the various types of keys, the house key is predominantly the most used key as everyone has a place to live and needs to secure or unlock his or her home. There are at least four common house keys being used in America today. These four common house keys differ in the shape and sizes in the key head portions where each has distinctively edged key heads. In the key industry, these keys are individually identified based on the different shape and sizes of the key head portions of these common house keys. They are: the KW1 key, the SC1 key, the WR5 key, and the KW10 key. The KW10 key is a newly introduced house key.
Prior art key caps are limited in their use with these house keys. Firstly, they do not fit around the wider keys, including the SC1 and the KW10 key heads which have obvious wide lateral sides. Therefore, the prior caps cannot be used if the user happens to own any such keys.
More significantly, however, the prior art key caps do not to fit well over the different edged key heads of the different house keys. Consequently, when the cap is placed over some of the key heads, the inner surface of the cap gets grossly distorted by the various curves and corners of the house keys and the cap bulges out. As a result, this bulging causes an unusual amount of stretching of the cap and the resulting stress of the surface areas causes tearing of the cap. Additionally, because of the rapid tearing of the cap, the user has to replace the cap often.
The prior art key caps are limited in its use because they are ineffective with some of the common house keys and with others, they cannot even be used at all. Moreover, the prior caps become distorted and stretched an exceptional amount when they are placed, or forced, over the common house keys. Additionally, the prior cap is subject to great wear and tear as a result and needs to be replaced quite often.